The Musik Messe was held in Frankfurt March 5th to the 9th. For those of you who don’t already know, the Frankfurt Musik Messe is the biggest music fair in the world. It is completely devoted to presenting musical instruments and music services of every kind. As many people already know, Musik Messe is one of Emergenza’s partners, and during the fair, Emergenza managers were able to secure stage spaces and other future possibilities for the bands participating in the festival. Four days of meetings and gruelling negotiations with producers, organizers, distributors, editors, and the media, all had a part in creating a springboard for incredible new opportunities for the artists committed to playing in the Emergenza festival. Let’s take a closer look at some of these exciting new developments. To start off with, the three bands who take first, second, and third places in the European Final 2003, will have an incredibly unique opportunity – During the Messe 2004, these three bands will play live on the main stage at the Agora in Frankfurt, one of the most famous and beautiful spaces in the Music Industries. The musicians will be special guests at the Fair events. Another new piece of information concerns the prize for the best drummer of the year 2003. Remo will endorse the winner of this category, and his name and image will be presented at the Messe, and promoted with postcards, posters, etc. In other words, whoever comes up to the Remo stand will find, besides the most sacred drum-sets in the world, also Emergenza’s “best drummer”, who in this way will have the opportunity to start a real, professional career, going in by way of the front door. There is also some great news as far as Emergenza’s acoustic sector is concerned. The “unplugged” version of the festival will extend out to Spain, England, Austria, and Canada, who are adding on to the concerts already scheduled in Italy, Germany, and France. The winner of the acoustic final in Paris will go on to play at the NAMM in the U.S. in March 2004, and will also be a special guest at the Messe, playing live at the very exclusive MIPA ceremony. For those of you who don’t already know, MIPA is considered to be the “Oscars” of the music world. With that in mind, these fortunate artists will be playing at the Top of the worldwide Music Industry. Getting back to Emergenza and the Musik Messe, here are the other new points: in 2004, the festival will set up a huge stand (over 80 square meters) directly in the heart of the show, which will be used as a professionally equipped stage where any Emergenza musician can come give a short performance. (If you are interested, you will find a special form on-line starting in December.) Besides getting a chance to play live, the bands can bring demos and press kits to have them reviewed and evaluated right there by a group of experts at the stand. The public can listen to the band’s recordings and give feedback, and the M.I. workers will be able to contact artists through a research point at the stand. Four mega-screens will show the artists onstage and a series of promotional opportunities will guarantee that the festival’s “stage-stand” represents a true “meeting-point” between young musicians and principle players in the professional music world. Another important project outlined during the four days in Frankfurt, concerns the Rothenburg International Final, where, for the first time, artists and will meet with internationally renowned musicians for a group of workshops. Musik Media, the primary German editor specialized in printing music, will be sponsoring the event, and will promote the opportunity through articles and other advertisements. Speaking about getting the word out, the surprises aren’t over yet. Voggenreiter Verlag, one of the main German editors specialized in music books and instrument method books, will dedicate a page in over 25 editions, in both German and English, promoting th